I am in the process of destashing my old, random cardstock and replacing it with Spellbinders ColorWheel Cardstock. As much as I don’t want to get rid of “perfectly good paper”, I know this is a choice that will simplify my color choices and my cardmaking in general. Swatching the full 48 colors was the first step, and I came up with a quick and easy way to do it that doesn’t waste much cardstock or take up much space.
I decided to create a template that would allow me to attach swatches of each color to a standard 8.5″ by 11″ inch sheet of paper. I pulled in the names of the Spellbinders ColorWheel cardstock colors and lined them up with one-inch squares. After I printed the template, I punched a square from each color (I bought a full A2 panel set so that I would have each color and they would be in order) with Spellbinder’s one-inch square punch. I used double-sided adhesive to adhere the squares to the paper.
I thought it would be a good idea to laminate the finished swatch sheet, but I wasn’t happy with the result. The laminate didn’t touch the area between the squares because of the thickness of the cardstock, and it melted my double-sided adhesive, so the whole front feels loose. I also used a matte laminating pouch which distorted the darker colors. It isn’t a total loss, but I decided to try again.
I repeated the whole process and decided just to keep the swatch sheet inside a page protector in a binder. I also punched squares from my Lawn Fawn patterned paper collections and will keep all of the swatch pages together. I’m sure I will add more pages as time goes on. Swatching can be addictive!
If you’re interested in swatching your own Spellbinders cardstock, you can download the template I created for free here. I also created a blank template that you can use for any of your other cardstock or patterned paper. Just use a one-inch square punch (or cut one-inch squares by hand) and glue them down!
Check out my YouTube video if you’d like to see me putting together my swatch sheet.
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If you liked this idea or downloaded my template, I’d love to hear from you! I hope your paper swatching journey is as satisfying as it is for me. Take care of yourself!
-Hannah C